Last month, the French army transport Loiret was crossing the Bay of Biscay. It was vile weather, but poof ! thought the officers, what of that? They were 160 kilometres off shore and their hydrographic charts showed 4,000 to 5,000 metres of water under keel.
Came an alarmed cry from the crow's-nest : "Breakers, breakers ahead!"
And there were. Not far off, the heavy swells, uprearing to heaven, toppled forward in streaming white tumult and stretched away into a flat boil, as smaller waves will over a jutting reef or sand bar.
The French officers, astounded,...
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